Claus Peter Volkmann

Claus Peter Volkmann , pseudonym after 1945 Peter Grubbe (born December 10, 1913 in Allenstein ; † January 29, 2002 in Trittau ) was a German lawyer and publicist . During the Nazi tyranny he was involved in the deportation of Jews to extermination camps in occupied Poland . After the end of the war, he was successful in West Germany for many years under a false name as a journalist and non-fiction author until his identity and past were exposed.

Life

Volkmann was the son of Erich Otto Volkmann , a general staff officer in the First World War and a successful writer under National Socialism . He attended humanistic grammar schools in Potsdam and Stendal and completed his school career with the Abitur . He then studied law at the universities of Tübingen , Göttingen , Munich and Berlin . In addition, Volkmann took geopolitics and newspaper studies and wrote as a sideline for the Frankfurter Zeitung . He finished his law studies in November 1939 with the second state examination.

Volkmann had already been active in the Hitler Youth (HJ) since December 1930 . At the beginning of May 1933 he joined the NSDAP ( membership number 2.280.558) and at the beginning of November 1933 the SS . In addition, Volkmann became involved in the Federation of German East from the beginning of June 1933 .

After the outbreak of the Second World War , Volkmann was from the end of 1939 in Krakow the personal advisor to State Secretary Josef Bühler in the General Government (GG). From the beginning of November 1940 he was Deputy District Chief in circles Radzyn and in the same capacity from April to July 1941 in the county Krasnystaw operates. During this time he initiated the ghettoization in the Lublin district. The "resettlement" of the Jews in Krasnystaw by Volkmann was chaotic. He was also responsible for the expulsion of 1,200 Jews and the establishment of two “penal camps”. From August 1941 to mid-1942 he was district chief in Kolomea County . The ghettoization by Volkmann in Kolomea was also chaotic. Kreishauptmann Volkmann appeared as an arrogant and brutal gentleman , it is said that at the beginning he sometimes gave slaps in the face when he perceived the population as too impudent. In Kolomea he organized the deportation of Jews to the Belzec extermination camp . According to testimonies, Volkmann allowed some Jews to be returned in return for payment. Because of economic irregularities - probably due to personal enrichment - he was drafted into the Wehrmacht . In the spring of 1943 he was reinstated in the GG upon intervention by Ludwig Losacker and became district chief in the Lowitsch district . There he ordered repression such as raids against the Polish population, "arrests and admissions to Volkmann's Małszyce labor camp" and ensured "the unconditional maintenance of the authority of the German administration". Volkmann later received the War Merit Cross 1st Class from Governor General Hans Frank .

After the end of the war

After the end of the war, Volkmann was a wanted war criminal who was able to go into hiding by changing his name to Peter Grubbe . Volkmann alias Grubbe finally made a career as a journalist and non-fiction author. First, from 1949, he was a correspondent in London for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . From 1953 Grubbe was there and from 1958 to 1963 in Hamburg foreign correspondent for the newspaper Die Welt . From 1963 Grubbe worked as an editor for Stern , later also for Die Zeit . Grubbe also worked for the radio, where he designed the NDR show “Before our door”. Grubbe, who gradually became a left-wing liberal, widely respected and “one of the critical noble pens in German journalism”, traveled to Africa and Asia, reported on errors in development policy and produced over 40 television films. He was also a member of the Advisory Board of the Society for Threatened Peoples .

From 1963, the Darmstadt public prosecutor's office was investigating Volkmann and other staff from his office in Kolomea for murder or aiding and abetting murder. Volkmann himself testified there in 1967, but could only partially remember his work in Kolomea. The proceedings were discontinued on May 30, 1969 by the Darmstadt Public Prosecutor's Office. Although in 1989 an article about Volkmann's true identity appeared in the GDR literary magazine Sinn und Form , it was initially hardly ever known to a broader public who was hiding behind the pseudonym Peter Grubbe . Volkmann's Nazi past was gradually being forgotten. In Germany he lived in Lütjensee .

Volkmann's name change to Grubbe and his Nazi past were made public again in September 1995 by the journalist Philipp Maußhardt in the taz : “There are two lives before death”. Shortly thereafter, Volkmann justified himself in an interview with the magazine Der Spiegel about his work as district chief of Kolomea and denied any guilt and responsibility for the crimes committed in his area of ​​responsibility in the course of the Holocaust . Volkmann claimed that he took part in order to be able to save lives “within modest limits”; Cash payments were not involved.

In the reporting, Volkmann's statements were contrasted with the statements of surviving Jews from Kolomea and his credibility was questioned. In comments, the repression was regretted; he was believed to have been expected to adopt a more self-critical attitude. Tilman Zülch had tacitly removed the name Grubbes from the advisory list of the Society for Threatened Peoples before the exposure was made public. For the writer Werner Steinberg , who lived in the GDR , Volkmann was an opportunist who changed the color of his convictions “like a chameleon”. Götz Aly saw this life as a "terrible normal case" in German society.

The biography of Volkmann, alias Grubbe, was the basis of the 2003 novel Der Feigling by Jost Nolte . As early as 1968 Werner Steinberg had hardly alienated the Volkmann case from the subject of his crime novel. And by the way: Let it become a murder ; Volkmann alias Grubbe appears there under the names Klaus Volkmann and Peter Grob .

literature

• Peter Hoeres : Newspaper for Germany. The history of the FAZ . Benevento, Munich, Salzburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-71-0900808 .
• Bogdan Musiał : German civil administration and persecution of Jews in the Generalgouvernement . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04208-7 ; 2nd edition, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-447-05063-2 .
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Updated 2nd edition. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
• Ulrich Völklein : The refused guilt: Conversations with a perpetrator. How the Nazi district chief became the left-wing liberal journalist Peter Grubbe. Hamburg 2000.
• Matthias Weiß: Journalists - words as actions. In: Norbert Frei : Careers in the Twilight. Frankfurt / M. 2001, ISBN 3-593-36790-4 , pp. 240-299.
• Markus Roth: Gentlemen. The German District Chiefs in Occupied Poland - Career Paths, Rule Practice and Post-History. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2009. ISBN 9783835304772 .
• Dieter Pohl : National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia 1941 - 1944: Organization and implementation of a state mass crime , (Studies on Contemporary History; 50), Oldenbourg, Munich 1996 (Zugl .: Munich, Univ., Diss., 1994). ISBN 3-486-56233-9 .
• Thomas Sandkühler : Final solution in Galicia. The murder of Jews in Eastern Poland and the rescue initiatives of Berthold Beitz 1941-1944 . Dietz successor, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-8012-5022-9 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Claus Peter Volkmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Peter Grubbe at Munzinger

Individual evidence

1. ^ In Markus Roth: Herrenmenschen , Göttingen 2009, p. 508 and Thomas Sandkühler: Endlösung in Galizien , Bonn 1996, p. 455, the date of birth is given as December 10, 1913, in Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich . , P. 644 and Bogdan Musial: German civil administration and the persecution of Jews in the Generalgouvernement , Wiesbaden 1999, p. 395, however, December 11, 1913
2. ↑ Peter Grubbe in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Bogdan Musial: German civil administration and the persecution of Jews in the Generalgouvernement . Wiesbaden 1999, p. 395f
4. ^ ^{A b c} Matthias Weiß: Journalists - words as deeds. In: Norbert Frei : Careers in the Twilight. Frankfurt / M. 2001, p. 295.
5. ↑ Markus Roth: Herrenmenschen , Göttingen 2009, p. 191
6. ↑ Dieter Pohl: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia 1941 - 1944 , Munich 1996, p. 194
7. ↑ Dieter Pohl: National Socialist Persecution of Jews in East Galicia 1941 - 1944 , Munich 1996, p. 191
8. ^ "Der Kreishauptmann Łowicz", March 1, 1944, quoted in Markus Roth: Herrenmenschen , Göttingen 2009, p. 149. On the collection of the delivery contingents, ibid, p. 148f and p. 242–244. On the Małszyce labor camp ( pl: Małszyce (województwo łódzkie) ), ibid p. 244
9. ^ ^{A b} Peter Reichel : Coming to terms with the past in Germany. The confrontation with the Nazi dictatorship from 1945 until today. Beck'sche Reihe 1416, Munich 2001 ISBN 3-406-45956-0 , p. 107
10. ↑ in Markus Roth: Herrenmenschen , Göttingen 2009, p. 414, the year 1948 is cited as the beginning of work for the FAZ
11. ↑ Christina Prüver: Willy Haas and the features section of the daily newspaper “Die Welt” . Würzburg 2007, p. 60
12. ↑ ^{a b} Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, second updated edition, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 644.
13. ↑ ^{a b} Murderers remain murderers - An author interviews himself: Jost Nolte on his novel "Der Feigling" ( Memento from November 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
14. ↑ Matthias Weiß: Journalists - words as deeds. In: Norbert Frei: Careers in the Twilight. Frankfurt / M. 2001, p. 297.
15. ↑ ^{a b} Erich Follath and Dieter Wild: "I am in the pure with myself" - the left-liberal author Peter Grubbe on his Nazi past as a district chief in Kolomea . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1995 ( online - Oct. 9, 1995 ).
16. ↑ ^{a b} Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff: The administrator of the slaughterhouse German double life: How a man cheated on himself and his environment for 50 years . In: Die Zeit , issue 42/1995.
17. ^ Markus Roth: Herrenmenschen , Göttingen 2009, p. 508
18. ↑ ^{a b} Heiko Seibt: The burden of guilt - Jost Nolte's novel “Der Feigling” is based on a real Nazi biography on www.literaturkritik.de
19. ↑ Philipp Maußhardt, There are two lives before death , the daily newspaper, September 29, 1995, p. 12
20. ↑ Matthias Weiß: Journalists - words as deeds. In: Norbert Frei: Careers in the Twilight. Frankfurt / M. 2001, p. 296.
21. ↑ compare taz of September 29, 1995, printed by Matthias Weiß: Journalists - words as deeds. In: Norbert Frei: Careers in the Twilight. Frankfurt / M. 2001, p. 299.